Posts Tagged consumer

virtual products in clothing industry

September 22, 2009 at 12:01 am · Filed under eMarketing, entrepreneurship, tech stuff, usability, vision ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

the virtualization of products is a topic that becomes more and more important for consumer good companies. a couple of years ago the aviation and car industries were the only ones that used this technology because it was too expensive to produce a ‘sample airplane’ the customer could sell in. but by setting pressure on sample cost savings, development time and focusing more and more on personalization and customization even the clothing industry starts to focus on virtual products. especially for B2B but as well for B2C purposes virtual products can be very helpful.

adidas virtual shoe-fitting mirror

adidas virtual shoe-fitting mirror

a very good B2C example is the magic mirror that was developed by the Frauenhofer institute in cooperation with adidas. the customer looks into a mirror that visualizes a product on the mirror-picture. the technology is working pretty well and the customer gets a good idea on how the shoes would fit.
another example is the augmented virtual dressing room that was developed by Zugara. instead of a mirror the technology is based on a webcam. the technology is as simple as promising. the webcam recognizes a printed aztec code the user has to hold in front of his body. by moving the Aztec code he can adjust the virtual shirt and finally put the paper away and try different products on. a very impressive tool. watch the video.

zugara augmented reality dressing room

zugara augmented reality dressing room

there are different scenarios on how such technology could be used; personalization and customization is named at front. but it offers as well huge potential on reduction of costs and time saving for development. nowadays a retail store has to have every item available in all sizes and all color ranges. You only sell what you have physical available.
by using virtual samples the product could be produced when it is already sold – so called ‘just in time’ production. as well the range wouldn’t need to be reduced to a few color ways or sizes. you could sell whatever you can produce – without having anything physically available.

of course there is the problem with the feel. we like to touch, which is good, before ordering a product. I agree this is a problem that has to be solved. and I am very confident that we will find a solution!

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multi media household devices

February 3, 2009 at 3:17 pm · Filed under entrepreneurship, tech stuff, usa, usability ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

fugoologoin the near future household devices will be connected to the internet. users will be able to remotely handle them on the run or let them operate freely depending on predetermined commands. so far nothing new, the vision is pretty old.

fully customize graphical user interface (GUI)

fully customize graphical user interface (GUI)

what is new is fugoo, a platform that provides (personalized) on-demand media content to household devices. means: when you develop any household device such as a clock, microwave or coffee machine you can use the fugoo application to run the device, connect to widgets offered by fugoo or connect to the internet.
Steve Guggenheimer, corporate vice president of the Original Equipment Manufacturer Division at Microsoft, gives an example “imagine having your alarm clock not only wake you up but also remind you what your first appointment of the day is and calculate how long it will take you to drive to work based on current traffic conditions.”

fugoo box in black

fugoo box in black

fugoo offers a small media box running a microsoft OS. this box offers all kind of media content through open interfaces.
household manufacturers can use the fugoo developers kit (offered for free) in order to build applications that connect to the media box and choose freely what elements to add. it will work like widgets that can be added and removed on demand.

offering a whole developing kit (incl. out of the box gui) is a great thing. until today companies, especially small ones, struggle to develop applications and guis for their products because they don’t have the money or the resources to build. with fugoo they can basically drag and drop the needed elements and enrich their products with free content.

future vision - maybe a bit over the top

fugoo vision - maybe a bit over the top

fugoo is currently developed by John Hui, Chris Chung and Wayne Inouye, all are former co-founders and developers at eMachines. they announced recently a cooperation with microsoft. microsoft will provide the operation system and give additional support to fugoo.
vision by John Hui, founder of fugoo: “How about a refrigerator that can generate a weekly shopping list based on staples that have been used up, and then place a delivery order at a local supermarket’s web site? Or a lawn sprinkler that checks the weather forecast for the possibility of rain before turning itself on? Or a dishwasher that can link to its manufacturer when it is malfunctioning, so the manufacturer can run remote diagnostics?
And maybe – just maybe – once all these devices are connected, they will also start talking to one another, like your “net” clock telling the coffee maker that you’re awake so it knows to start brewing.”

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eMarketing region asia-pacific by RADICA

January 20, 2009 at 8:54 am · Filed under asia, eMarketing, entrepreneurship, hong kong ·Tagged , , , , ,

radicasys

radicasys

RADICA is a company focusing on email marketing in region asia pacific, located in six countries employing about 35 people.
i had the pleasure to meet CEO francis kwok, a young, bright mind who started RADICA in 2000 at the university of hong kong. we had a very interesting discussion and francis showed me some new, for me unknown, approaches on how marketing can be successful.

fact is that marketers try to match products to target groups. as better the match as higher the chance consumers will buy. but when is a match a match? a man will not buy a woman’s watch. that is for sure, you do agree! and many marketers do agree. but maybe that is wrong. it is not always a question of need, more a question of addressing the right way. “valentines day soon – seeking for a present? buy her a watch…” only because i do not need an item does not necessarily mean that i wont buy it. a consumer that is attracted to a brand will purchase to ’spread the wealth’.

marketers experience that personalization plays an important part when addressing marketing messages. state of the art is to address the consumer by name, but as better the content fits the consumer as more likely s/he will purchase a product. by that i do not mean “knowing the need” than “knowing the person”. the consumer wants to feel understood, taken care of.

nowadays marketing is able to address very precise due to the huge amount of information available to every consumer. shopping behavior from payback cards, walking patterns from surveillance cameras (CCTV DM) or location based information from mobile devices. marketers just have to read between the lines, define a profile and address consumers.

francis gave me an inside in one of the most successful campaigns RADICA ever launched. the company was launched for a well known fashion brand. they analyzed the shopping behavior: where do people buy, what do they buy, how often do they buy and what is their family status. “people that used to buy expensive items will continue doing this. we do not send cheap offers than propose expensive items that match their actual collection. those people do not care about the money. they search for high quality products that amplify to the existing collection. And most of all they like to be taken care of, personalization is a major point.”
all mails were signed by shop staff in order to assemble a personal connection. “the consumer got the impression that the message was sent from a specific person and got back to this person when entering the shop next time. our goal was to get closer to the consumer.”

the campaign became the most successful one in the history of RADICA, mainly because the consumer was carefully analyzed and specifically described. a couple of hundred personalized emails can higher the ROI tremendously compared to traditional mass mails. one can assume the price per email became very expensive, but the ROI was above all expectations.
the art of being able to have such a high revenue is to gather the right data. “often the problem is that wrong data is gathered and wrong assumptions are made, this is a problem because it is likely to loose a consumer when addressing him/her personally.”

just imagine someone using my online profiles in order to offer me marketing information. i am awaiting a call telling me to buy nike running shoes…

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CCTV Digital Marketing

January 14, 2009 at 9:47 am · Filed under eMarketing, tech stuff ·Tagged , , , , , ,

camera-warning-sign

cctv warning

predicting consumer behavior is the goal of every retailer. knowing how consumers behave, act and move opens the possibility of placing products the right way and addressing the consumer precisely.

the newest trend for analyzing consumer behavior is to use surveillance cameras, so called cctv (closed circuit television). most retail stores have already cctv in place, originally installed for security reasons. these systems are now used in a new way, for digital marketing purposes. cctv becomes cctv DM.
the technology for analyzing behavior patterns looks as followed; every angle of a retail shop is covered by surveillance cameras. the video information is sent to a central server where movement patterns are analyzed. a software compares different pictures of the video and analyzes movement. because the whole store is covered by surveillance cameras the software can predict hot and cold areas and tell the shop manager what products and areas people tend to like or not like.

the shop manager can then act based on the information cctv has gathered. he may place hot products near the entry, replace cold products or even change the shop setup in order to stimulate consumers to experience more areas of a shop – and buy more.
until today the technology is only able to analyze movement patterns but some solutions already aim on recognizing gender and age of consumers. in future it will be possible to recognize users by face recognition.

cctv consumer tracking

videomining tracks consumer movement using cctv

the concept and technology is pretty new. videomining, footfall and fujitsu already deliver working solutions, cable&wireless, shoppertrack and silent witness will start to deliver solutions soon.
the market potential is huge taking into account that
A. retailers have a need of such information and
B. most of the infrastructure in form of surveillance cameras is already in place and just needs to be upgraded.

from a retailers perspective cctv digital marketing might be a step ahead, from a privacy perspective it is a huge step backwards. lets hope that the constitutional law will be taken into account when implementing cctv DM.

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